Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemArtistry, identity and the drama teacher: a case study using performance ethnography as mode of enquiry( 2017)Drama is a compulsory subject in secondary schools in Victoria, Australia, with a rich history of dedicated and passionate educators. Despite this, little research has been done in recent times that investigates the professional lives of these drama teachers, and even fewer studies use drama as a method through which to do so. This research project reveals that drama teachers often experience feelings of being perceived by others as teaching a subject which is inferior, and whose value to schools lies more in extra-curricular activities than in the academic realm. This can result in teachers who are marginalised, yet whose time outside of the classroom is in demand. This thesis presents the results of a qualitative case study, which investigated the experiences of seven drama teachers in Victoria, Australia who engaged in a process of ethnographic performance making about their professional lives, drawing on their own lived experiences as data. Interview transcripts, participant journals, creative artefacts and researcher observations were analysed to interrogate the responses and reflections of these teachers as they undertook a process of generating, analysing and presenting their lived experiences through performance. Findings from the case study suggested that the process of ethnographic performance-making was invaluable to these teachers, bringing them to new understandings about their professional lives, as well providing insights into the context of their work. The ethnographic process gave them agency to find a voice through which to communicate the importance of their subject to others. Furthermore, it was found that the role of the audience was significant; the audience for the associated live performance came to new understandings about the drama teachers’ role and subject, and their responses energised the drama teachers to continue to advocate for the importance of their subject and identity within the school . This study forms part of a growing body of research on the identity of the drama teacher, and contributes a crucial new dimension to the scholarship that supports professional development for teachers more broadly. Furthermore, it highlights how ethnographic performance-making can provide a framework through which all teachers may reflect on, and come to meaningful understandings of, their professional lives and possibilities for the future.
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ItemThe constructivist learner: towards a genealogy( 2016)This thesis traces the genealogy of constructivism in Australian primary mathematics education. I place my focus on the mathematical learner and consider how this learner has been shaped, in turn and together, by three significant forms of the discourse—Piagetian, radical and social constructivism. Motivated by my own experiences as a primary teacher and educational publisher, I investigate how it has been possible for the constructivist learner to become a leading learner subjectivity in mathematics education today and analyse the effects of this predominance. To study this ‘problem’ of the constructivist learner, I follow Michel Foucault’s genealogical approach to discourse analysis, and undertake a history of the present. Drawing on a range of documents including curriculum frameworks, mathematics education association material and teacher education texts, I study the constructivist learner of three different eras—1965–1975, 1985–1995 and 2005–2015. I examine the conditions of possibility for each learner, consider who this learner is allowed to be, and, who is allowed to be this learner. Taking a step back from taken for granted assumptions about constructivism, I reflect upon what this opens up and closes down for learners and learning. The thesis analyses the constructivist learner as a shifting subject, emerging from historical-cultural contexts, and in response to theoretical shifts in—and pedagogical recontextualisations of—the constructivist discourse. However, the thesis also finds certain continuities in the conceptualisations: the constructivist learner is engaged, active, a rational thinker and a collaborative problem-solver. I propose that this subjectivity embodies Australia’s hopes for the ideal 21st century citizen and fears for those who fail to attain this ideal. While these aspirations are future-oriented, I claim they attach to our progressivist past as well as our neoliberal present. In understanding subjectivity as both discursively produced and mutable, I argue that the constructivist learner is neither a natural, nor necessary, subjectivity and that its dominance has closed down the possibility of other learner subjectivities. Rather than arguing against constructivism, I seek a consideration of other types of learners and space for other learning theories.
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ItemA political malaise: education for political understandings in Australian curriculum: history( 2016)This study examines the notion that Australia has entered a condition of political malaise. It seeks to find explanation for this development in a particular domain: Australian history education. Recent developments therein are assessed for the extent to which political understandings have been made available to students. On this basis the newly implemented Australian Curriculum: History is evaluated. The study employs a methodology of discourse analysis. Perspectives of politicians, experts and theorists are collected to examine contemporary political conditions. Theories regarding the manner in which history and education are harnessed for the purpose of constituting political and national identities are considered. Australian Curriculum: History is scrutinized in the context of the contestation that surrounded its creation and reception. The study posits the notion that the historical discourse has been coopted into the ideological conflicts of Australian party politics; that Australian Curriculum: History is constitutive of ideological predilections of antagonistic parties rather the historically informed critical faculties necessary for useful democratic participation.
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ItemIdentifying the factors that support or restrict the use of open education resources by higher education academic staff at a vocational education institute( 2015)This thesis investigates the factors that facilitate the use of Open Education Resources (OER) by higher education staff at a public Tertiary and Further Education Institute (TAFE). By using a case study methodology, academic staff were interviewed regarding their use or non-use of OER, their perceptions of OER, as well as what they regarded as the challenges and enablers in using these resources. This study provides an Australian perspective to research already undertaken in this area, as well as an insight into the contemporaneous use of OER with emerging teaching pedagogies such as Web 2 technologies. For the purpose of this research, OER are defined as resources that are freely available for use, reuse, modification, and sharing in educational contexts, with intellectual property requirements ranging from public domain through to creative commons licensing arrangements. The research found that OER provides a number of benefits, including facilitating the use of extensive and cost effective education resources, supporting learners through Web 2 technologies and allowing academic staff to engage with professional bodies and the broader community. Conversely, a number of issues were also identified that inhibit the use of OER. These include difficulty in sourcing appropriate teaching resources, awareness of copyright and intellectual property legislation, access to technology, cultural and language barriers along with a perception that OER are not academically rigorous. The implications for institutions arising from this research therefore include the requirement to develop an OER culture within the institute; capitalise on existing knowledge; explore the use of web 2 technology and pedagogy; and finally, staff professional development. This research has also found that there are a number of benefits for institutes in utilising OER including: academic delivery cost reductions, marketing and commercialisation opportunities, developing enhanced learner experiences, and being able to leverage off existing blended learning pedagogies.
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ItemReshaping design education: teaching graphic design online and onsite( 2014)The ways in which embodied relations between student and teacher in the design studio may contribute to design pedagogy is little understood. The development of the online design studio is thought to pose a risk to design learning and teaching as it separates student and teacher bodies and, therefore, may ‘block’ these little understood practices. Previous studies of the online design studio have tended to focus on instrumental concerns, such as curriculum delivery and online communication, rather than on the ways the configuration of learning spaces influences design pedagogy, or how the embodied practices of the design studio are translated into digital spaces. This study, set in the graphic design studio in a private, US-based art and design university, unearths fresh understandings of the material practices that characterise graphic design teaching in onsite settings, and how these practices are translated/transformed when design teaching moves online. It provides a fine-grained understanding of how human bodies, things, and the spaces of the onsite, online, and blended graphic design studio produce particular kinds of pedagogies. This research directly compares online and onsite practices in the same kinds of classes, showing the continuity between the online, onsite, and blended practices and challenging the received view that what takes place online is radically different to what occurs onsite. More specifically, the graphic design critique is shown by this study to be composed socio-materially—made up of people, talk, spaces and things, assembling in various ways—and displays a variable ontology as it moves from onsite to online. In this movement, there is a shift from a more embodied pedagogy, to more textual knowledge practices. This results in online pedagogy that is more structured and reflective. This shift has significant implications for the ‘good practice’ of graphic education in the online environment.
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ItemThe role of school principals in implementing data led professional learning teams in Department of Education and Early Childhood Development schools, Victoria.( 2013)This investigation uses a case study of a Prep-12 college and its attempt to set up professional learning teams. The school is a Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) school based in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The school in question had been part of a Regional initiative called the ‘Achievement Improvement Zones’ and also participated in the Assessment Learning Partnerships program between the University of Melbourne’s Assessment Research Centre and DEECD. The research was conducted by a participant observer employed by DEECD as a teaching and learning coach at the school. Twenty staff members were interviewed and their data was analysed thematically and compared with reports developed from school visits to professional learning teams in 2009. The role of the leadership team (mainly the principal) was the main focus in examining how the school developed professional learning teams. This was measured against the leadership domains developed by Thomas Sergiovanni (2004). The research concurred with his findings about the domains of leadership in suggesting that three domains (educational, technical and human) are the most important when setting up Professional Learning Teams. In the case of the school under study, the human leadership domain appeared to be the most important.
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ItemA breath of fresh air: social marginalisation and wellbeing. Exploring an outdoor pedagogical approach to learning to promote self-esteem and engagement( 2013)This study investigates an alternative outdoor learning strategy used to address issues of engagement and performance in a disadvantaged regional school in Western Australia. Through exploring the impact of such strategies we may gain an insight into the value of such approaches in promoting wellbeing and, in turn, education outcomes. Increasing cases of stress and other mental health related illnesses are a cause for national concern (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2010). Interestingly the AIHW (2010) identifies marginalised Australians as a group at risk, having shorter life span than groups of greater economic advantage. Kappos (2007) among others (Maynard, 2007) also offers evidence, which suggests that the reduced contact children have with nature can be linked with a decline in physical, mental and social development. Maller et al. (2005) maintain that contact with nature can act as a vehicle to reduce the burden of mental health and promote mental and emotional wellbeing along with physical wellbeing. A qualitative methodology frames the study design, which used a case study method bounded by a single case school with a timeframe of a 10-week term. Examining a specific outdoor learning approach known as forest schools, the case study’s aim was to explore the impact of this program on self-esteem and engagement and consequently identify emergent themes. The study suggests to me that there is potential for such a program to impact on areas of engagement and self-esteem through group connectedness, belonging and social interactions. This can be particularly important for disadvantaged youth. It was difficult, however, to establish a transfer of benefits in a classroom setting context. Related research in this field and to this study also suggests there is a need for more local research over longer periods of time in order to best examine different contexts of locations and understandings more conclusively.
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ItemMulticultural and diversity education in the globalised classroom in Australia( 2012)Australia is no longer an “isolated backwater” island floating around the Asia-Pacific region. It has become a country of great importance as a multicultural hub that continues to flourish in a time of social, cultural, and population growth. With this changing environment the needs of its people, in particular its children, have also changed. As multicultural awareness begins to expand and borders cease to define the cultural differences of those around us, the needs of the learners in school are also in a state of flux. This paper tracks the evolution of multicultural and diversity education policies in Australia through seven key documents: these are The National Policy on Languages (Lo Bianco, 1987), the Asian Studies Council Report – Asian Studies Council (1988), National Agenda for Multicultural Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 1989), Adelaide Declaration (1999), Melbourne Declaration (2008), Blueprint for Education and Early Childhood Development (2008) and Education for Global and Multicultural Citizenship: A Strategy for Victorian Government Schools 2009-2013 (DEECD, 2009). It concludes with implications and impacts of this history and these documents and addresses the need for continued teacher preparation and instruction through recommendation new initiatives.
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ItemRethinking indigenous educational disadvantage: a critical analysis of race and whiteness in Australian education policy( 2011)This thesis examines Indigenous school education in Australia, through analysing themes of difference, race and whiteness in contemporary education policy. The study asks why educational inequality and disadvantage continue to be experienced by Indigenous school students, despite concerted policy attention towards redressing these issues. It seeks to better understand how Indigenous education is represented in policy and scholarly debates and what implications this has for Indigenous educational achievement. I argue that in order to succeed Indigenous school students are often expected to assimilate into an education system that judges success according to values and expectations influenced by an invisible ‘whiteness’. The investigation of these issues is framed by insights and approaches drawn from three theoretical frameworks. Michel Foucault’s concepts of ‘discourse’, ‘disciplinary power’, ‘regimes of truth’ and ‘normalisation’, and Iris Marion Young’s work with issues of difference, ‘cultural imperialism’, oppression and justice are brought into critical dialogue with critical race theory (CRT). In particular, CRT is engaged as an attempt to bring some new perspectives to understandings of race and difference in Australian education policy. This combination of theories informs an examination of policy (and policy related texts) guided by Foucauldian discourse analysis and critical policy research methods. Through my analysis I develop a number of arguments. First, that the combined theoretical approach I engage is useful for uncovering some of the silences and assumptions that have typically influenced attempts to achieve educational justice for Indigenous Australians. Second, in the documents I analyse, the ways in which Indigenous students are described commonly positions them as deficient and suggests that these deficiencies are to be remedied through exhibiting more of the behaviours and attitudes of non-Indigenous students. Third, that the commitment to ‘inclusion’ within the policies analysed is important, but typically maintains a relationship in which a powerful and central white ‘norm’ remains invisible and dictates how and when the ‘Other’ is included. Fourth, that in seeking to understand equity issues for Indigenous students it is important to look also at the broader education system and its dominant values and goals. Through analysis of policies related to education for ‘all students’, I suggest that educational success is commonly identified and assessed according to ‘white’ norms, within schools that are expected to improve and be accountable within a neo-liberal agenda, which is largely supportive of standardisation and sameness, and not readily accommodating of ‘difference’. Overall, this study has attempted to bring some important conceptual approaches to analysis of current education policy in Australia in order to build greater understanding of Indigenous educational disadvantage. It has sought to open possibilities for addressing issues of race and justice that are characterised by listening, support of difference and responsibility, and commitment to disruption and discomfort.